Politics Thread - Ka-tet of 19

[Guard Dog]

Going off on a tangent here. If the US, Mexico, & Canada were to unite in a single country what might that look like? Politically? Economically? Culturally?

Edited June 19, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Gfted1]

It would look like the EU. A complete soup sandwich.

[Guard Dog]

It would look like the EU. A complete soup sandwich.

Soup sandwich! I am SO stealing that one!

[Malcador]

Going off on a tangent here. If the US, Mexico, & Canada were to unite in a single country what might that look like? Politically? Economically? Culturally?

Wonder what government system it would have, I guess we'd probably stick with the US system and end up with the US portion dominating the rest of the country. One good thing, you can send all the wannabe soldier cops down to Mexico to fight the cartels

[Gfted1]

With the exchange rate in Mexico being 20-1, I dug deep into my pocket and purchase a pair of Oakley sunglasses for 250 peso ($12 US) while I was on vacation. They are totally not a knockoff. 

[Guard Dog]

New York NEEDS this man. This whole country NEEDS this man.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA_eTtULKAo

[smjjames]

It would look like the EU. A complete soup sandwich.

 

Not as complex culturally, but yeah, it'd still be a soup sandwich.

[ktchong]

Libertarianism - the cult of Ayn Rand - is the real problem of this country.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by ktchong

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I mean, it kind of is, but this sounds like a ****ty dig against the man?

[smjjames]

nvm

Edited June 19, 2018 by smjjames

[Agiel]

 

Were this a sketch on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" this would be the move the blatant KGB mole with a 10-gallon hat secured over the Ushanka his head with scotch tape would pull in front of the cameras to try and deflect suspicion off of him.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Agiel

[Zoraptor]

A country which has appointed a torturer to head of its spy agency has decided to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council in "shame". Nice to see some integrity for once.

 

(Always amusing to see Haley act as if everyone else is an integrity vacuum except the US and Israel, then complain about how she's Nicky No Mates without the slightest trace of irony showing)

Edited June 19, 2018 by Zoraptor

[smjjames]

The UN Human Rights council could use some integrity itself since it has countries like Saudi Arabia on it.

[Elerond]

The UN Human Rights council could use some integrity itself since it has countries like Saudi Arabia on it.

 

It has Democratic Republic of the Congo in it, just to give perspective of country that doesn't have any human rights, at least that is my guess for reasoning why it was selected.

[Gorth]

 

Going off on a tangent here. If the US, Mexico, & Canada were to unite in a single country what might that look like? Politically? Economically? Culturally?

Wonder what government system it would have, I guess we'd probably stick with the US system and end up with the US portion dominating the rest of the country. One good thing, you can send all the wannabe soldier cops down to Mexico to fight the cartels

 

 

I'm sure the US would love to see Queen Elizabeth on their coins and bank notes

[smjjames]

A country which has appointed a torturer to head of its spy agency has decided to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council in "shame". Nice to see some integrity for once.

 

(Always amusing to see Haley act as if everyone else is an integrity vacuum except the US and Israel, then complain about how she's Nicky No Mates without the slightest trace of irony showing)

 

Rather than anything against Israel, the final straw seems to have been UN criticism at the current immigration crisis with separating children from parents. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/19/17479356/nikki-haley-un-human-rights-council-us-out While she does have a point about the other members like China and Russia and not considering a resolution on Venezuela (she doesn't give specifics), which is also a member, it seems a bit rich to use 'Israel bias' as a reason to exit that council.

[Zoraptor]

The UN Human Rights council could use some integrity itself since it has countries like Saudi Arabia on it.

 

The UN Human Rights Council could definitely use some integrity itself, that would be a massive increase over its current zero integrity. Mostly though, having Haley and Pompeo give masturbatory speeches about how great the US record on human rights is and how principled they are when literally the previous story was about kids being forceably separated from their parents in the US as a political lever is slightly jarring.

 

Nevertheless, if that was the reason the US withdrew I'd be applauding them, but it isn't, they've withdrawn because it won't act as a rubber stamp for US positions- and, once again, they've failed to even get their friends on board with said positions. It's clear that the UNHRC has problems, but the number of countries who believe they can be fixed by taking their ball and going home while whining about the injustice of it all is... not very high. To paraphrase the common saying with a smattering of Seymour Skinner "if you have the occasional disagreement it's probably not you; have nothing but disagreements and it probably is you who is the problem, not everyone else"

 

On a more practical level, excluding countries from the UNHRC as the US wants would not improve things. Israel cannot get support even from staunch US allies for a reason, and that won't be 'fixed' unless the US and its appointees are the only countries with a seat at the table- or Israel stops its quite genuine abuses of human rights so they can at least get support from US allies.

 

As for excluding the DRC or Saudi etc, preaching down to the disenfranchised seldom works and has some... unpleasant historical overtones, especially when most of DRC's population was literally worked to death by a particular modern western bastion of human rights, without any repercussions at all, and not that long ago either.

 

So if you're going to exclude DRC do you exclude Belgium for slavery, genocide and leaving Congo as a complete basket case, or was that too long ago/ accidental/ too white man's burden? Do you exclude the US due to the School of the Americas, rendition, coups, invasions, drone strikes etc? Britain due to the Opium Wars or Churchill's Bengal Famine, or forceably deporting Diego Garcia's entire population etc? France due to Libya and the plethora of coups and strongmen its supported in Africa etc? Even little old NZ let a plague ship into (then) German Samoa and systematically nicked land off brown people. Apply any exclusion principle equitably and we end up with the UNHRC being... Bhutan, maybe? In the end you just get a variation on the Genocide Olympics but with Human Rights and people arguing about the quality and reasons for all the abuses and which should be exclusionary and which not.

[smjjames]

Given that Haley is a woman, pretty funny you saying she gave a 'masturbatory' speech, though I get what you mean. And yeah, there's plenty of hypocrisy to go around, and some countries suffered human rights abuses under their colonial overlords.

 

Given all the hypocrisy to go around, seems like it would be better to just include every single country on Earth in it, yes, including NK despite them being pretty much the worst offender. The US would still complain about 'Israel bias', but given that in such a situation, even the smallest countries would be able to hold states like Venezuela or China accountable. There will still be complaints against the US, but that's the entire point, everybody should hold everybody else accountable whether they like it or not.

[Bartimaeus]

​

Given that Haley is a woman, pretty funny you saying she gave a 'masturbatory' speech, though I get what you mean.

Uh...what?

[smjjames]

​

Given that Haley is a woman, pretty funny you saying she gave a 'masturbatory' speech, though I get what you mean.

Uh...what?

 

 

Just thought it was a bit funny to use the term for a woman giving the speech. not in a HA HA way, more of a 'pfft, heh' way.

[Orogun01]

 

Going off on a tangent here. If the US, Mexico, & Canada were to unite in a single country what might that look like? Politically? Economically? Culturally?

Wonder what government system it would have, I guess we'd probably stick with the US system and end up with the US portion dominating the rest of the country. One good thing, you can send all the wannabe soldier cops down to Mexico to fight the cartels

 

Considering a violent unification rather than willing annexation, is more likely that Mexico will be militarily occupied and Cartels will be dealt with either through negotiations to help stabilize the area or through force (probably and ideally a combo of the two)

That said, the US conquering Mexico would be disastrous for the US economy.

[Malcador]

True, when I read unite I had pictured voluntarily joining the nation rather than the US deciding to become the Third Rome

[injurai]

Norman Finkelstein often talks about the concept of US and Mexico uniting to become one nation. Citing that we stole a large chunk of their nation, that large percentages of the southern populations are Latino and Hispanic, and further that our economies are intricately connected. Evidence being our reliance on their migrants, and how tons of money is sent back to Mexico annually. It's an interesting prospect, but one that I think is ultimately doomed.

[smjjames]

Something more realistic would be an EU style thing, probably a Pan-American type deal since it's not much fun with just Mexico, USA, and Canada.

 

I know it still wouldn't be particularily realistic, but it's far more realistic than a straight up nation-state of North America.

Edited June 20, 2018 by smjjames

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Given that Haley is a woman, pretty funny you saying she gave a 'masturbatory' speech, though I get what you mean.

Women "pleasure themselves" too bruh.

 

EDIT: Apparently a certain term is censored. Burgerland prudishness strikes again.

Edited June 20, 2018 by KaineParker